Air traffic controllers face furloughs under sequestration

Feb. 22, 2013 - 01:57PM
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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (AFP)

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The Federal Aviation Administration may furlough “the vast majority” of air traffic controllers and other employees if across-the-board budget cuts take effect as scheduled next Friday, top officials told aviation trade groups in a letter Friday.

The agency, whose workforce totals about 47,000, is also considering closing more than 100 air traffic control towers around the country, eliminating midnight shifts at some 60 others, and cutting back on preventive maintenance and supplies, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in the letter.

If needed under sequestration, the cutbacks would begin in April, they said. Employee furloughs would average one day per pay period through the end of the fiscal year in September.

“All of these changes will be finalized as to scope and detail through collaborative discussions with our users and our unions,” LaHood and Huerta said.

The scheduled cuts, required by the 2011 Budget Control Act, will cost non-defense agencies about 5 percent of their budgets unless Congress and the Obama administration agree to head them off. While almost 4,000 FAA employees were furloughed for about two weeks in 2011 after Congress failed to pass a stopgap spending bill on time, those temporary layoffs did not affect air traffic controllers. In this case, “travelers should expect delays” because fewer controllers will be on duty, LaHood and Huerta said.

Flights to major cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco could be slowed by up to 90 minutes during peak hours, according to their letter.

The cutbacks could also reduce the number of flights that can be in the air at any particular time, Doug Church, spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said in a statement. As a result, he said, the public could face fewer options and higher ticket prices.

“Air traffic controllers are accustomed to performing under pressure and they will rise to this challenge if confronted with it,” Church added. “But these kinds of indiscriminate cuts will not help improve the efficiency of the world’s safest air space.”

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Here is a list of 200 airports from which the department says it will select 100 whose towers will be closed by April 1.